Communication security is a concern to many businesses, governments, and other institutions or individuals. Most telephone communications are in “clear mode” which means that none of the data sent between the participants is encrypted. An eavesdropper can therefore easily obtain and review such telephone communications. As a result, businesses, government institutions, and individuals concerned with security, view clear mode communications as problematic.
Cordless and cellular transmissions are especially vulnerable to eavesdropping. Cordless phones, for example, operate like much like radio stations. Signals from cordless or cellular transmissions can be picked up by a number of devices including radio scanners, baby monitors, radios and other such devices. The signal carrying a wireless conversation can usually be transmitted and overheard up to one-fourth of a mile away, and it is sometimes possible for conversations to travel up to two miles away. Cellular phones send radio signals to low-power transmitters typically located within five to twelve miles in radius of a particular cellular phone. Eavesdroppers can usually not pick up cellular phone calls by electronic devices such as radios and baby monitors, but they can receive them with radio scanners.
There is a growing need to protect the information communicated over all sorts of telephone networks. In particular the need for security has become more important due to the growth of the number of wireless/cellular telephones. In 1996 over sixteen percent of people in the U.S. owned a cellular phone. By 1998 over twenty five percent of people in the U.S used cellular phones, compared to 1999 when wireless telephone subscribers in the U.S jumped twenty four point three percent to a total of 86 million wireless customers.
Approximate % ofAverageU.S Population withMinutes/MonthCellular/PCSof CellularYearPhonesGrowth Rate %Usage199616.6199825.6+54.089199930.0+24.31552000 (based on a38.0*+26.7247population sizeof 283,989,290)*Includes pagers
Because eavesdropping is an ever-increasing threat to privacy, there is an ongoing interest in developing systems, cryptosystems or systems that put messages into coded form, that would eliminate or substantially reduce this threat.
There are systems that provide a mechanism for secure a communication channel. However, these systems lack a mechanism for effectively protecting the keys used to encrypt and/or decrypt data sent across the network. For example, none of the current systems for performing secure communication use an architecture that adequately protects the encryption keys while still retaining the keys within the device.
Therefore there is a need for a system that provides users with the option to secure voice data as it is transmitted between different types of telephones while simultaneously protecting the key pairs used to encrypt and/or decrypt messages without requiring the user to understand or participate in how such key pairs are utilized.